Amazon's Bezos finalises divorce, MacKenzie receives $38 billion

As Amazon turned 25, its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos' divorce from MacKenzie Bezos — his wife of 25 years — was finalised when a judge signed an order for separation and making MacKenzie richer by a whopping $38 billion.

Bezos gets roughly $1.52 billion a year since she got married to the Amazon Founder and CEO.

Under the agreement, MacKenzie Bezos, 49, will receive approximately 19.7 million Amazon.com shares, giving her a four per cent stake in the company valued at $38.3 billion, and landing her at 22nd on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the news service said.

A judge in Washington state's King County finalised the divorce. Jeff Bezos, 55, will retain a 12 per cent stake and remain the world's richest man.

MacKenzie Bezos, a novelist, has said she would give all of her stake in The Washington Post and the space exploration firm Blue Origin to her husband as well as voting control of her remaining Amazon stock.

She has also promised to donate half her fortune to charity, joining the ranks of the world's ultra-wealthy philanthropists as a signatory of the Giving Pledge.

The personal life of Jeff Bezos was thrust into the spotlight with the announcement in January that he and his wife were divorcing after 25 years of marriage and the revelation by the National Enquirer that he had been having an affair with a former news anchor, Lauren Sanchez.

Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos married in 1993 and have four children. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in their Seattle garage in 1994 and turned it into a colossus that dominates online retail.

Agencies